


a friendship so much needed

by luna65



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Murder Husbands, nakamas forever, post-S3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 06:30:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4735955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna65/pseuds/luna65
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A moment in the lives of two friends joined for reasons they alone can understand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a friendship so much needed

**Author's Note:**

> I'm declaring this to delve into the would-be canon of Will and Hannibal in South America...having yet another elliptical conversation about their relationship.

"For it seemed to me, and I think to him, that it was from that sexual tension between us, admitted now and understood but not assuaged, that the great and sudden assurance of friendship between us rose: a friendship so much needed by us both in our exile, and already so well proved in the days and nights of our better journey, that it might as well be called, now as later, love. [...]"  
\- Ursula LeGuin, _The Left Hand of Darkness_

 

Will Graham, a man who preferred space and a particular kind of silence, felt claustrophobic in the clang and roar of this city. He was an analog man, and the city was so brightly digital it made his teeth ache. But Hannibal knew the best place for them to hide in plain sight was a metropolis so engaged with its own chaos and unrest they would not provoke even the slightest attention.

They took a moment of repose in a popular cafe at the center of the city's shopping district. Will read a book while Hannibal tapped at a tablet. When he excused himself for a moment, Will didn't bother glancing at the screen...because that would be _rude_.

He watched Hannibal recede into the throng of natives and tourists, as always immaculate - this time in a tropical-weight seersucker suit and linen shirt - his some-color-which-was-no-color hair hanging down nearly to the spot where his neck met his shoulders. They had both grown their hair longer, and Will lifted his curls from the back of his neck, grimacing at the sweat collected there. He tried not to stare at the people around him, for to stare was to invite scrutiny, but the sights, smells, and swell of languages made him curious, as did the variety of people. This was a cosmopolitan city, given to the type of luxury and discernment Hannibal preferred.

He retreated for a moment to his memory palace - jogging through a field, his dogs chasing after him, barking with what he hoped was joy at movement through brisk air under a muted sky, following the man who loved them, and who they loved in turn. He smiled.

He turned another page in the book he had found that morning in their rented villa, sipped at the coffee he had ordered, not truly engaged with either action. Hannibal returned to the table and when a waiter appeared and inquired as to his needs, he firmly but politely declined in what Will imagined was flawless Portuguese.

_Was there anything this man didn't know how to do?_

"What are you reading?" Hannibal asked.

" _The Left Hand of Darkness_ ," Will replied. "An old favorite. Imagine my surprise to find an English copy here."

"Ah LeGuin, so adept at codifying the nature of the other. _Truth is a matter of the imagination_ ," he quoted, and Will was not surprised Hannibal knew the text as well as he did.

"I've always been curious as to what that would be like. But I see myself as binary, still. I imagine you're not."

Hannibal gave a slight shrug. "I recognize the conflicts, the compartmentalization, but I am outside of it. I always have been."

"Outside of most things, I'd say."

"There are traditions I am fond of. But your innate ability allows you to see beyond the ones and zeros, on and off."

"Good and evil."

"Love and hate." Hannibal's lips pursed just the slightest bit, his version of a chuckle.

"I feel I am still anchored to certain expectations."

"Those anchors are buried so deep there is no hope of digging them out. But you can break the links of the chains holding you to them."

"You are the agent of change, I'd say. Making those links much weaker than they were."

"I am only a harbinger. I would believe I am significant -"

"Significantly influential," Will said, completing the sentiment and looking directly into the other's eyes, a type of conversational emphasis.

Hannibal smiled his slight smile. "You are wholly unique, and you are my friend, always. That is the only expectation which matters."

Will smiled in turn. "And you are my friend, always." He reached for his cup once more.

"How is the coffee?"

"Not as good as what you make, of course."

"You will find many things are not as palatable as what I offer."

Will smirked. "Entirely apt as always, my friend."

Hannibal's smile was a little broader in turn. "I would hope my ability for articulation remains ever so, my friend."

Will raised his cup. "To understanding."

Hannibal nodded. "And to the clarity it may bring to us both."

"What are _you_ reading?" Will asked.

Hannibal picked up his tablet and turned the screen so Will could see the banner of _Tattle Crime_ , and below it the headline: **The ballad of the Murder Husbands**.

"We are dead men walking," Hannibal quipped in his deadpan fashion. "Sung to our eternal rest by the russet-haired siren."

"I read it this morning while you were in the shower. Did you get to the part where she compared us to Bonnie and Clyde yet?"

"I wonder which of them changed the other, or if it was of an equal amount? It is said they were not intimate in the usual way."

Will shrugged. "Did they need to be, if they each saw something they wanted in the other?"

"Your emotions are evolving, are your desires evolving as well?"

Will blushed, looked down at the table. "I don't know. This is an undiscovered country for me, in all ways."

"Always," Hannibal whispered, an echo and a pun, and Will took his expression - enigmatic but not wholly devoid of emotion - to be another way in which he articulated his pleasure in the company he kept.

As always, the world was so vast, and the world was only large enough for two.


End file.
